As early as I can remember, I have had a love for everything Disney. Growing up in Florida, and to my enjoyment, every field trip or vacation was spent in the various magical parks located in Walt Disney World. After grad school, I followed that love to Disney Sports where I worked in the marketing department concentrating on the Endurance Series. This time in Orlando let me experience the parks as often as I wanted plus make some wonderful friends. My favorite time of year is Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival – the World Showcase adds 15 to 20 booths where samplings of food and wines from various countries are available for purchase. Luckily, we were driving though Orlando during this time. 
Our drive to Orlando wasn’t without its cheesy awesome moment. Having done the drive to Florida from Clemson many times using the I-85 to I-75 route, we decided to take a different route to spice things up. Located along I-95, right before the Georgia state line is Papa Joe’s Fireworks. It’s not dissimilar to many roadside firework stands, except they have 2 GIANT elephants standing in their parking lot – 1 pink and 1 gray. We had to stop for the photo op. 
We arrived in Orlando just in time for a wonderful dinner at my dear friend Melanie Light Campbell’s house. Mel and I have been friends since middle school and I have been thoroughly integrated into her family, being adopted by her grandma, sister and 8 month-old daughter Calina Lilly (I get to be Auntie Stef!). Some rousing games of Bananagrams and Apples to Apples followed dinner. We awoke the next morning rested and ready for a day of eating our way “around the world.” However, our globe-trotting could not begin until I made a pit stop to see my old boss at Disney Sports. Courtney Ware was a great mentor during my time at sports and the experience would have been vastly different had she not been there. Playing catch up with the rest of the team, I remembered why I enjoyed working there. They are a great group of people.
From the Clubhouse, we made our way to the gates of Epcot where my friend Ally Stankavage was waiting. Also a Disney-phile, Ally has stayed on with Disney Sports, now working at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex. We began our Food and Wine journey with her. Soon enough, Mel and baby Calina joined us. Upon completion of our 1st lap of the world, Courtney Counts and Adri Truitt - also great friends from my time from at Disney Sports - joined us. 
After 3 laps, we decided to take a break and enjoy the “Eat to the Beat” Concert Series. Today’s Artist: Vanessa Carlton. She was great, but didn’t quite understand the set up for the series. Each artist performs 3 45-min concerts per day for a 2-day stretch. The goal being that the each concert features the artist’s greatest hits, because most concert-goers don’t attend all 3 concerts. Vanessa thought that she should spread out her hits across the 3 concerts, so she performed 1 hit song and a handful of other songs from her new CD that no one seemed to recognize. Despite that, we enjoyed the set.After the concert, we left Epcot full of food and wine and headed to Adri’s house to enjoy a night of laughter and games. We arose the next morning, said our goodbyes and headed even farther south…West Palm Beach!
